


forgetmenot

by moonix



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (Gotta stay on brand after all), Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Angst, Breaking Up & Making Up, Fortnum & Mason, Kinda happy ending?, Let's go with hopeful, M/M, Pining, Poverty, Sweetie's, Tea, post high school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 14:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18209690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: Four years ago, Andrew left Neil behind. Now he's back in town and Neil couldn't care less - really.





	forgetmenot

**Author's Note:**

> Idek what this is, but it was cathartic to write *shrugmoji* I actually listened to music for once while writing this (the album Aventine by Agnes Obel which admittedly has a lot of instrumental pieces) and I also made a [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/moon-ix/playlist/6GzVIaAOFjtpI7YZTeBAKD?si=iS0XPw9wTZOARpAXd6sSLA) so if you wanna get in the mood, that's that.
> 
> Stuart loves Fortnum & Mason tea and you can't tell me otherwise.
> 
> Slight warnings for: mention of eating disorder, vague allusions to canon-typical backstories

Andrew was back in town.

He hadn’t bothered to inform Neil of this minor detail, which was why Neil only found out about it when Andrew wandered into their usual Friday night dinner at Sweetie’s like he’d never even been gone.

Neil was working. He always made a point of stopping by the others’ booth whenever he had a minute to catch up with his friends, and on quiet nights he usually joined them for a burger or a drink. Tonight was not a quiet night. One minute he was called back into the kitchen, and the next Andrew was there, in his usual seat, stealing Kevin’s fries and making a sarcastic quip at something Allison had said.

“Neil! Look who’s here!” Matt called out, waving him over. Their booth was crowded tonight—even Renee had taken the evening off from the helpline where she volunteered in her spare time. Neil carefully placed down the last of the drinks before he allowed himself to look at Andrew.

He was both different and so familiar it hurt. New haircut, purple shirt instead of black. His shoulders seemed broader than Neil remembered. But the armbands were still the same, his bee pin was nestled in the same spot as always on the strap of his beat-up messenger bag, and Neil’s old denim jacket was slung over the back of the bench.

He was gazing back at Neil with steady eyes. They were light brown flecked with green, like dry, sun-dappled moss somewhere in the quietest part of a forest.

“What do you want?” Neil said.

Andrew raised an eyebrow.

“Am I not allowed to come home for summer break?”

“To drink,” Neil clarified, holding up his notepad.

“Ouch,” someone said, too loud to be discreet. “Why’s Neil pissed at Andrew?”

“Vanilla milkshake,” Andrew said and stole another handful of fries from Kevin’s plate. Neil pretended to write it down.

“Why don’t you sit with us for a bit, Neil?” Dan said. “You’ve been rushed off your feet all night. You should take your break.”

“Can’t,” Neil said, gesturing loosely behind himself at the packed diner. “Sorry.”

Dan looked worried and like she was about to protest, so Neil flashed her a quick, cheap smile before bolting. Sweetie’s really was busy tonight and Marissa was home sick with a stomach bug—if Neil forgot about Andrew’s milkshake, it was definitely not on purpose.

*

When Neil came home, Uncle Stuart was camped out on the sofa. Neil sighed, kicked his shoes off and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

“Hey, champ,” Stuart said, roused by the siren call of tea. “Long day, huh?”

“Did David kick you out again,” Neil asked, already knowing the answer. Stuart flinched and ran a hand over his thinning hair.

“We might have had a minor disagreement. Are you making the Queen Anne?”

Neil, who had been staring listlessly at the entrails of a cupboard for the past few minutes, took out the almost empty tin of Queen Anne and shook it. A stupid habit, really. Both his mother and Uncle Stuart did it, though—it was basically ingrained in his DNA.

There was more tea on the counter, tins and boxes that didn’t fit in the cupboard stacked haphazardly along the wall. Mary always swore she’d sort it out one day. Neil caught sight of a brand new tin, probably smuggled in by Stuart, and rolled his eyes.

“You look tired,” Stuart said, shuffling into the small kitchen. He crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his bathrobe in tight in the process. His skin was grey and he’d lost weight again. Neil grabbed the cream from the fridge, sniffed it to make sure it was still alright and poured a generous dollop into Stuart’s cup before stirring in the tea and two spoonfuls of sugar.

“Really, Neil. You should take better care of yourself,” Stuart chided.

“I’m not the one who’s HIV positive,” Neil muttered, knocking the spoon against the rim of the cup and dropping it in the sink. He drank his own tea black—with a squeeze of lemon if they had any, which they never did.

Stuart chuckled dryly and sipped at his tea, smacking his lips.

“Well, I’m lucky to have a nephew who looks after me. But who looks after you?”

“I don’t need looking after,” Neil said. “Drink your tea and go to bed, old man.”

“Always so diplomatic,” Stuart mused. “Just like your mum.”

Neil opened the fridge again, but no food had magically appeared since the last time he’d looked. Aside from the cream, there were some condiment bottles rattling around inside the door, an empty jar of marmalade, a dodgy pat of butter on a saucer, Mary’s sacred marmite and Stuart’s smelly cheese. He closed it again. Should have eaten at the diner.

“Your bread’s gone mouldy,” Stuart said helpfully. “Again.”

Neil sighed and stirred some sugar into his tea after all. It was better than nothing.

“I’ll go grocery shopping tomorrow.” He wouldn’t. They were behind on bills again, and their landlord had made it very clear what would happen if they failed to pay the rent by the end of the week.

“Here,” Stuart said, holding out a crumpled-up twenty. “My little contribution.”

“Don’t need it.”

“Take it anyway,” Stuart insisted, dropping it on the counter when Neil didn’t take it. His smile looked cracked and glued back together. Maybe it was just the wrinkles.

“Go to bed,” Neil told him again. Bed, in this case, was just their crappy sofa that Neil had rescued from a dump and re-upholstered. Badly. Stuart claimed it was still better than sitting outside his and David’s apartment all night like a kicked dog, waiting to be let back in.

Neil left him to it and took his tea back to his room.

*

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Mary said. They were all early risers, or bad sleepers—however you wanted to see it. Neil had fallen asleep at his desk sometime around four, though he’d done more staring at his books than actual studying. At this rate, he wouldn’t get his damn GED until he was thirty.

“Your smoke detectors don’t seem to work.”

Good old Stuart, always stating the obvious. He must have found some eggs and scraped the mould off the bread, but had evidently forgotten that their toaster was broken and their gas turned off. The eggs slid around the unheated pan, slimy and unappealing. The toaster was steadily belching smoke out the window.

“I told you not to open the window, it’s broken,” Neil reminded him, unplugging the toaster. It kept smoking, so Neil wedged the window open wider and threw the damn thing in the general direction of the overflowing bins.

“You can piss off right back where you came from,” Mary told her brother. Her crutch thumped dully on the floor as she made her way into the living room and lit a cigarette.

“Nice to see you too, little sister,” Stuart called after her. “Hey, Neil, do you think we can make eggs in the microwave?”

“I don’t know,” Neil said. “I’m going to work. Try not to blow up the place.”

“I’m not the one who keeps broken appliances around until they become fire hazards,” Stuart muttered under his breath, scowling at the eggs in the pan.

*

Neil was prepared to ignore Andrew’s existence for the entirety of the summer. He’d been doing just that very successfully for the past four years, after all, and he had enough on his plate without adding a stale, long-ago heartbreak to the mix.

Not even heartbreak, really. Just a—scratch. The kind that left a faint scar, even though it hadn’t even hurt that much, had barely even bled.

“Riiight,” Allison said when Neil told her just how much he didn’t care that Andrew was back. “Christ, Josten, you’re usually such a good liar. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Neil said, worrying at his thumbnail. “Nothing happened.”

“That’s what I used to say too when people asked me why Seth and I split up,” Allison snorted. She twisted a strand of bleached hair around her finger and chewed on the ends, then nudged him with her bony elbow. “Won’t you tell me, baby boy?”

“Nothing happened,” Neil insisted. “He left, we lost touch, is all. It’s fine. Really.”

Allison clicked her tongue and made a vaguely sympathetic sound, hooking her arm around his shoulders and pulling him in until their foreheads smacked together.

“Are you eating?” Neil asked her. It had been a while since her last stay at the clinic and she’d gained some weight since then, but he still liked to check in every now and again rather than skirt around the issue.

“Yes. Are you?” Allison shot back pointedly, pinching his side through his oversized shirt. Neil slapped her hand away.

“When I can afford it,” he said truthfully.

Allison pressed a sloppy kiss to his temple and ran a hand through his hair.

“Come to mine sometime this week so I can wine and dine you, yeah? Or beer and brunch if you prefer. Pissnut misses you.”

Pissnut was her unfortunately named tiny, yappy dog. His actual name was Pistachio, because he was so small, but he’d gained the nickname by pissing on Allison’s favourite rug and, like all dumb nicknames, it had stuck around.

“Okay,” Neil said. “Are you going to invite Andrew?”

“Course not,” Allison hummed. “You silly bean.”

“You could, if you wanted to.”

“Do _you_ want me to?”

“No,” Neil said. “I don’t care. Do what you want.”

“Hmm,” Allison made, pursing her lips. “Sooner or later, you’ll tell me what he did. And then I’ll kick him in the nuts.”

“It’s not like that,” Neil lied.

“Yeah, and Seth didn’t cheat on me,” Allison said, nodding wisely. “Come on, let’s go shopping.”

“No money,” Neil said.

“Not that kind of shopping,” Allison grinned.

*

They went to Mrs. Hemmick’s boutique, because Allison had some kind of personal vendetta with her. She chatted pleasantly with Mrs. Hemmick while Neil “browsed,” and they left the boutique a few hundred dollars in textiles richer. Allison inspected the loot, chose a strapless sequin dress for herself and took the rest to the slightly-above-average second hand store to sell.

They had lunch at Sweetie’s after, if smoothies counted as lunch. Neil looked out the window at the bleak parking lot and chewed on his straw. He’d had a raspberry smoothie the day Andrew had left for university. He could still feel the seeds crackling between his teeth as he’d sat and waited for him to show up, in the corner booth with the scorch mark on the table where Andrew had once fooled around with his lighter.

“Speak of the devil,” Allison said when a black car pulled into the parking lot, oozing bass thick and heavy like tar. Renee got out of the passenger seat and waved at Allison through the glass.

Neil looked down at his mango smoothie, poking at a non-existent raspberry seed that was stuck between his teeth.

Renee slid in beside Allison, leaving the seat next to Neil for Andrew. Neil didn’t look at him, but just the smoke and leather smell of him made his head spin with Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.

“I have to go to work in half an hour,” Renee informed Allison, stealing a sip of her smoothie.

“You always have to go to work in half an hour,” Allison huffed. Andrew got up to order food at the counter and chat to Roland, leaving his denim jacket behind. Neil eyed it. He could just take it—it was technically his, after all. There was a new patch on the sleeve: a skeletal hand emerging from a tangle of blue flowers, the words _forget me not_ embroidered in thin white thread underneath.

The sound of Roland’s full-bodied laugh made him look up. Andrew was leaning over the counter, mouth cocked in a smirk, fingers twirling idle patterns through some spilled sugar. The night before Andrew had left, that hand had been buried in Neil’s pants on the backseat of Andrew’s car. Neil, clinging to his shoulders, arching and gasping and—“Andrew, I think I-”—except then Andrew had stoppered up the confession with a kiss and Neil had lost his nerve.

Maybe he should have said it.

It wouldn’t have changed anything, probably. But maybe he should have said it. Just that once.

Andrew came back with Roland’s new number and two plates of nachos that he plopped on the table. No, Neil decided; it was a good, merciful thing that Andrew had stopped him. Plausible deniability was definitely the better option here.

*

“Hey, buckaroo,” Stuart greeted him when he came home from his shift.

“Don’t,” Neil warned him. Stuart and Americanisms were a horrible mix. It had been one hell of a week—it had been one hell of a life—and Neil just wanted a hot whisky and a hot bath. They’d actually paid their bills somewhat on time this month, thanks to a few extra shifts Neil had pulled doing inventory at Wymack’s store, so he had to make use of the hot water while he still could.

“Why are you here again?”

Stuart sniffed and cupped his hand over his heart.

“Well now, that’s no way to greet your favourite uncle.”

“My only uncle,” Neil muttered, poking around the cupboards for the whisky.

“Which automatically makes me your favourite uncle,” Stuart pointed out. He tapped the tin of Fortmason tea and added, “Be a good lad and make two of that, will you?”

Neil made a pot of tea with more whisky than water, added a glug of orange juice and a cinnamon stick he found in their measly spice rack and poured it into two glasses since all of their mugs were in the broken dishwasher. Stuart unearthed an unlikely packet of cheddar and a jar of mustard and made them cheese sandwiches, and they sat on the couch and ate in silence, broken only by the occasional coughing fit from Mary’s room.

“Your friend popped round while you were out,” Stuart said once they reached the dregs of their whiskies. “The handsome one.”

“You say that about all my friends,” Neil huffed.

“Not my fault you only have handsome friends,” Stuart smiled, following the rim of his glass with his fingertip. “Hadn’t seen this one in a while, now that I think about it. You two have a fight or something?”

“No,” Neil said. His throat felt cold and closed-up despite the whisky.

“He seemed quite keen to see you. Maybe he wanted to apologise.”

“It’s none of your fucking business, okay?” Neil snapped, setting his glass down. “I’m going to take a bath. Remember the lock’s still broken, so don’t just barge in there or I swear I’ll pour all your precious tea down the toilet.”

Stuart held up his hands and made a point of turning on the TV. It wasn’t loud enough to muffle the muttered, “Sounds like a fight to me,” and Neil banged the bathroom door shut for good measure.

*

Four years.

They’d passed by quickly, despite all the hours that had seemed to drag on forever. Between ever-changing shifts at ever-changing jobs, looking after Mary and occasionally Stuart, studying for his GED and then never getting around to taking the actual tests, several minor and some major catastrophes and emergencies, Neil hadn’t had a lot of time to think about Andrew’s absence. Yet his life seemed oddly punctuated by it, like holey socks slowly falling apart around his feet.

He’d lost his virginity to Andrew. He had, possibly, regrown his virginity in those four years, if that was a thing—Allison said it was, and she had a lot more sex than Neil, who hadn’t slept with anyone before or since Andrew. It was a bit pathetic. Neil was a bit pathetic.

Andrew was waiting for him when he locked up the diner for the night. Either he’d come here by chance or Roland had told him about this week’s roster. Neil had seen him through the window, smoking by his car; had taken his time cleaning up, but it was late and he was tired and Andrew wasn’t going away.

“Roland isn’t working today,” Neil said, triple-checking that the door was really locked and all the shutters were down.

“I know,” Andrew said. Neil shouldered past him and fished his cigarettes out of his pocket. He’d burned his hand on the milk steamer today and the skin was angry red and blistering. His blue jacket was threadbare and dirty; his sneakers were falling apart. The night crowded around the tip of his cigarette as he lit it, exhaling smoke.

“Neil.”

His name was like the snap of a rubber band, bouncing him back. Neil pressed against the inexorable tug, but Andrew caught up all the same.

“You’re angry.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Neil said, angrily. Clamped his mouth shut against it and nearly snapped his cigarette in half instead.

“You used to,” Andrew pointed out. “That night before-”

“Before you left, yeah,” Neil ground out, “for some fancy-ass college on the other side of the goddamn world, without telling me, yeah, that. I remember now. Must have forgotten while I was stuck in this shithole for the last four years, just like you forgot me. Good for you.”

“I didn’t forget you,” Andrew said.

“Could have fooled me.”

“What was it?” Andrew asked, inching a step closer. The lit tips of their cigarettes were twin focal points in the darkness, but they were eclipsed by the beacon that was Andrew’s closeness. He licked his lips. “The thing you wanted to say. That night.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t want to hear it then,” Neil said bitterly. “Look… I know we had an agreement. My feelings for you weren’t a part of that, and I was stupid for thinking- but we were still friends. You told Renee and Kevin that you were leaving. Why not me?”

Andrew was silent the way a diver holds his breath under water. Then, slowly, he reached out and touched the calloused pad of his thumb to the bruised skin under Neil’s eye. Ran it down over the scar from a biking accident on slippery roads, picked up Neil’s hand and inspected the burns.

“Because it hurt,” he said at last. “Leaving you behind.”

Neil’s eyes burned, but they were dry when he touched them.

“Yeah, well, getting left behind sucked too.”

Their cigarettes burned down to the filters under the weight of their words. Andrew’s went out first, Neil’s following shortly after. A clump of ash fell on his sneakers, sparking brightly before going out.

“So, why are you really here? Did you graduate yet?” Neil asked after a while.

“No,” Andrew said.

“Why not?”

Andrew hesitated, then wiggled his fingers and said: “I couldn’t remember. In my last exam. Like a… black-out.”

“What,” Neil said, surprised. “You? With your memory… thingie?”

Andrew shrugged.

“Can’t you resit the exam?”

“I can,” Andrew said slowly.

“But?” Neil prodded.

Andrew shrugged again with just one shoulder. He looked helpless, almost.

“We could study together,” Neil found himself suggesting. He bit his lip. There was nothing here for Andrew. Come the end of the summer, he would go back to his swanky university, get his degree and find a job. Neil felt like leftovers that had sat in the fridge for just a little too long. Better to just throw them out.

But he still suggested it, because for now, Andrew was still here. For now, Andrew was still wearing Neil’s jacket and smoking his favourite cigarettes and looking at Neil like he was a feast.

“Okay,” Andrew said. “Now?”

*

Neil’s bedroom was really nothing more than a glorified shoebox. Andrew hit his head on the slanted ceiling above his bed, which was saying something, at his height. Neil sat down at his desk and jumped up again a moment later. He couldn’t stay in the room with Andrew sprawled out on his unmade bed, so he went into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

“Did you hug it out?”

Stuart’s head popped over the back of the sofa like a slightly pillow-creased jack-in-the-box. Neil ignored him, staring into the cupboard in search for answers. Stuart joined him and conjured a gold-embossed box of Vanilla Nougat tea out of thin air that Neil was pretty sure hadn’t existed in their household before today.

“For a special occasion,” Stuart said conspiratorially and winked. “Make me one too, while you’re at it.”

At least he hadn’t broken out the Wedding Breakfast blend.

Neil made a pot, divided it up between three mugs and dug around for a packet of cookies that he knew they’d finished last week. The only thing he found was a sad bag of trail mix past its expiry date, but he poured it into a bowl and took it with him anyway.

“Why are you studying for the GED?” Andrew said when he kicked the door shut behind him. He was sitting at Neil’s desk, flicking through his half-hearted notes which were more doodles in the margins than actual notes. Doodles that, occasionally, included ones of Andrew. Neil almost spilled the tea, lurching over to the desk and slamming the trail mix down on top of the papers before Andrew could find any more.

“Didn’t finish high school,” he admitted. “Mom lost her job, so.”

He shrugged. It was only the tip of the iceberg—there’d been medical bills, a broken car, the court case and restraining order against Nathan; Allison’s breakdown, Kevin’s accident, Stuart’s debts.

Andrew leaving.

School had been the least of Neil’s worries, then.

He sat on the bed, still clutching the two mugs of tea. Andrew got up and sank down beside him, prying them loose from his grip and putting them on the desk. His eyes flickered between Neil’s like he was reading something printed in bold across his face.

“Leaving was a mistake,” he murmured. Neil wanted to lean against him, breathe him in. He picked at the fraying hem of his sweater instead and took small, controlled breaths like sipping whisky, letting the burn in his lungs linger.

“No,” he said, quietly, “you did the right thing. You got out. You deserved that, after- after everything.”

“It doesn’t matter what we deserve.”

“No? What does matter, then?”

Andrew was silent for a moment, then reached for one of Neil’s hands. His skin simmered with excess warmth and Neil found himself holding on tight, like he was going to lose him all over again if he let go for just a second.

“What matters is what we want,” Andrew said.

“Well,” Neil said around the bitter dregs of a smile, “I wanted you, and look where that got me.”

A small muscle just under the left corner of Andrew’s mouth twitched. It always did that when Neil managed to surprise him.

“Neil,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Neil said reflexively, like a shield raised after the blow.

“Do you still want,” tumbled from Andrew’s mouth, snagging on a tiny pause. “Me?”

Neil swallowed.

“Yes,” he said.

As if he’d ever said anything else to Andrew.

*

Evening was slow to unravel, the sky off-white; champagne and cream and yellowed lace. Stuart drove Neil to the station with a travel mug of tea, even though Neil wasn’t the one who’d be travelling.

“Still look like you need it,” Stuart had said with a shrug. He wasn’t wrong.

Neil had expected Aaron or Renee to drop Andrew off at the station, but Andrew’s car was in the parking lot, gleaming pitch black in the fading light. Andrew was leaning against it, smoking one last cigarette.

“Don’t,” he said when Neil approached.

“Don’t what?”

Andrew tapped the taut muscles in Neil’s throat and traced the corners of his eyes.

“Cry?” Neil scoffed. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

“Good,” Andrew said and stole a kiss. While Neil was distracted by his mouth, he slipped something in Neil’s hand.

Neil looked down at the car key, feeling the dips and ridges and the seams of the buttons.

“Want me to drive it back to Aaron’s?”

“Aaron has his own car,” Andrew said.

“Renee’s, then?”

“Don’t be daft.”

Neil swallowed and closed his hand around the key.

“Are you sure?”

Andrew kissed him again, laid his hand over Neil’s and squeezed. Then he slipped his jacket—Neil’s jacket—off his shoulders and draped it over Neil’s.

“Don’t forget me,” he murmured against Neil’s mouth, tapping the forget-me-not patch on the sleeve.

“Come back,” Neil whispered.

“Promise,” Andrew said and sealed it with a kiss.

Neil didn’t cry when Andrew left. He sat in the driver’s seat of Andrew’s car, the one that they’d fooled around in so many times as teenagers, and sipped his tea slowly—St. Pancras blend today, for leaving and being left behind. Except Andrew had promised this time, and Neil already felt lighter.

He was going to pass his GED, and then—something. He’d figure it out when he got there.

**Author's Note:**

> Am on Tumblr as [annawrites](https://annawrites.tumblr.com/), will love kudos/comments/asks like I love tea :*
> 
> PS don't eat mouldy bread. Even if you scraped it off. Please.


End file.
